Visitation and custody battles aren't just for parents anymore.

As the definition of family becomes ever less traditional in the United States, battles over child custody and visitation rights are increasingly being fought by grandparents as well as husbands and wives. Courts in Alaska, Florida, and Kansas have reported significant judgments in this area.

In Alaska, grandparents who had raised two boys for three years retained custody of them despite a challenge from the natural father. (C.R.B. v C.C. and B. C., Nos. S-8104 and S-8323, 98 WL 271243 (Alaska May 29, 1998).)

The father--in a new marriage, with a new home and new business--argued that public policy should favor custody by a parent. The Alaska Supreme Court disagreed.

"Two foundation policies.., collide in this case: the law's preference for parental over nonparental custody, and the law's desire to meet children's need for stability," said the court.

The court ruled that the father's suit against the grandparents must meet the same standard for a change in custody that would be required if he were battling the mother: proof of a substantial change in circumstances. Lacking that, the greater need was for the children's stability.

Influenced by interest groups like the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), virtually all states have passed "grandparents' rights" legislation in recent years allowing visitation when deemed in the child's best interests.

The Florida Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on a petition to deny visitation rights granted under the state's grandparent visitation statute. Philip and Cheryl Von Eiff are asking the court to overturn a ruling that forces them to have their seven-year-old daughter visit her maternal grandparents. (Margaret Jacobs, More Families Fight in Court Over Grandmas Visits, Wall St. J., June 3, 1998, at B1.)

The grandparents had regular contact with the child until her mother died and her father remarried. Von Eiff's new wife, Cheryl, adopted the girl and ended her visits with the maternal grandparents.

The case is complicated by the fact that Cheryl is now divorced from Von Eiff and is raising her adopted daughter as a single parent. The couple is jointly continuing the battle against visitation rights.

According to the Kansas Supreme Court, grandparents cannot reach beyond the line established by adoption. (Sowers v. Tsamolias, 941 P.2d 949 (Kan. July 11, 1997).)

Grandparents James and Barbara Sowers sought visitation rights with their biological grandson after he had been adopted by Peter and Toula Tsamolias. Mrs. Sowers argued that the Tsamoliases had promised to allow visits but had reneged and moved out of state.

The court upheld a lower court decision that a new family relationship created by the adoption severed the Sowerses' rights as grandparents.

Attorney Mike Minton of Chicago, chair of ATLA's Family Law Section, said section members "have found a dramatic increase in petitions filed by grandparents to see children." The petitions are commonly filed when grandparents reside out of state or wish to take a child out of state during a divorce proceeding, on a vacation trip, for example.

Minton said that, even though grandparents sometimes get as emotionally involved in a divorce as party litigants, "the parenting plan necessarily has to include grandparent visitation, especially where geography is a consideration." He noted that older children often feel more comfortable confiding in a grandparent than in separated or divorced parents.

Even when a stepparent feels threatened by a child's continued contact with the parent of a deceased or divorced partner, "the grandparents are given status by statute," he said. "They have a right to assert that the new status of the husband and wife should not impact negatively on their own status as grandparents."